Subject: QC journals 'in trouble'

From: Patrick Bultinck <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 13:31:37 +0100 (NFT)

Message sent to CCL, and editors I met somewhere.

Dear,

As a quantum chemist and IT-responsible in the lab, I am confronted with 
the following. One of my jobs here is bibliometrics, in other words 
largely keeping track of citations. A new university policy is to keep 
track of who is publishing in the top ten or top ten procent of the 
journals in a specific branch or specialty. The reference is the list of 
Impact Factors published yearly by the Institute for Scientific 
Information. They publish a list of impact factors divided in branches 
like 'Chemistry, Organic', 'Chemistry, Physical' etc. If you publish in 
the top ten of the journals (ranked according to impact factor) or in the 
top ten percent (if it's a long list of journals in that branch) you get 
a kind of reward by being mentionned in the University list of 
publications. The more you are recognized, the more attention will be 
paid to you when asking for funds is the common belief...

The trouble is mainly with journals like 'ours' e.g. J. Mol. Struct. 
(THEOCHEM). A lot of the quantum chemistry specific journals do not have 
high impact factors. If you consider the way these are calculated, that's 
not suprising, and does not indicate low quality of the journals. We are 
in small niche of journals. The trouble is now that were are in the 
branch 'Chemistry, physical'. To get in the top ten (percent even), we 
need to 'beat' things like 'Advances in Physical chemistry', and a lot of 
review journals. That is practically impossible, even very well-known 
journals like J. Am. Chem. Soc. have trouble 'beating' things like 
'Chemical Reviews'. A hypothetical journal with an IF (impact factor) of 
2.50 (good for a QC journal) will not make it to the top 10% in the 
current branche. On the other hand, a journal with an IF of 0.95 CAN make 
it if it is in a small branch in the ISI list ! Depending on the branch 
you are in with 'your' journals, an impact factor of 1.5 can yield a 
miserable position in the list, or be a top-journal (hum).

I raise this point here because it should be of interest to all, 
especially those that are member of some editiorial board. A possible 
solution may be to distinguish a 'Chemistry, Theoretical' group of 
journal in the ISI list. Editors could play a role in getting ISI to do so.

Another option might be that Ghent University does no longer pursue this. 
But we are leading in bibliometrics, and a LOT of things that started in 
Ghent have come spread all over the world. So, it seems to me, we might 
better not be taking chances.

Oh by the way, bibliometric research is considered being objective... (?)

Patrick Bultinck
Quantum Chemistry
Universiteit Gent
Belgium